Reporter’s Guide To China’s Olympics

Human Rights Watch is publishing a pocket guide for reporters planning to travel to China to cover the Beijing Olympics. Produced with the support of the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Reporters’ Guide to Covering the Beijing Olympics addresses how to report in a largely closed country, with particular attention to the hazards facing Chinese sources and news assistants.

An estimated 25,000 foreign journalists will cover the Beijing Games. This guide spells out both their rights – in particular under the Chinese government’s temporary regulations for foreign journalists – and the risks they or their Chinese contacts may face. The Reporters’ Guide is also downloadable online at no cost at http://china.hrw.org/, and will also soon be available in French, German, Spanish, and Japanese.

“Many of the journalists heading to Beijing are veteran sports and Olympics reporters, but the environment in China poses unique challenges,” said Minky Worden, media director at Human Rights Watch and editor of China’s Great Leap, a new collection of essays on China and the Olympics. “Journalists will encounter extensive government surveillance, internet censorship, and serious risks to Chinese fixers and sources.”

Read also a report from the Hollywood reporter. For more on press conditions in the run-up to the Olymmpics, for both domestic and foreign reporters, see an updated version of the report from the Committee to Protect Journalists, Falling Short.